He broke into a loping run toward the place where the artisans were putting the last coats of glaze on the newly inscribed windows, and cleaning some of the other, older panes, only to be stopped by a quartet of Sorbold soldiers who were guarding the glassworkers.
“What are you doing up here?” a heavyset column leader demanded as the others readied their pikes. “Turn back.”
Achmed came to an abrupt halt, his hands at his sides. His mismatched eyes locked with those of the commander; after a moment of stony silence, one guard whispered something to another behind the column leader’s back. He thought he caught the words Bolg king; apparently he was correct, because the column leader stepped aside, glaring at him silently.
Rank had its benefits, as did renowned ugliness.
“I want to speak to the artisans,” he said evenly, moving closer to the soldiers in as nonthreatening a manner as he could muster.
The soldiers looked at each other, then back at the column leader.
“Most of them don’t speak the common tongue,” the column leader said; “Majesty,” he added reticently after a heartbeat.
“Who are they?”
The soldier shook his head. “Itinerants. Traveling craftsmen from the southeast. They call themselves the Panjeri. The empress must have hired them; they have come at times over the years to attend to her glasswork. One of the women says they will be leaving soon.” An unpleasant note crept into his voice at the word women.
“Which woman?” Achmed asked, looking past the soldiers at the artisans and seeing four of them.
The column leader shrugged, then turned and watched them for a moment.
“They all look the same,” he said finally. “I commend you to that one, Majesty.” He pointed past a rocky rise to the scaffolding that braced against the circular cliff face which held the crypt windows.
Atop the scaffold a single artisan remained while the others packed. She was crouched in a squatting position, intently polishing a small area of the newly installed portion of the Crown Prince’s glass memorial, oblivious of the setting sun and the occasional shouts of her comrades.
Achmed nodded curtly; his head was throbbing with an unpleasant hum mixed with the annoyance of knowing the colloquium was either waiting for him or, worse, carrying on in his absence. He climbed the remains of the embankment and quickly crossed the rest of the rocky ledge, coming to a halt beneath the scaffold. Several of the Panjeri stopped in their transport of materials to stare at him.
“Who is your leader?” he asked three men and a woman who were watching him sharply.
The men exchanged a glance, then returned to staring.
“Do any of you understand me?” Achmed said, trying to contain his frustration.
The silence answered him.
Finally he moved away from them, feeling their eyes locked on him, and approached the scaffold.
The woman atop it was still intent on her work. She was edging the window with a small, crude tool, buffing the glass as she checked the seam once more. One of the other craftsmen shouted up to her impatiently in a language Achmed did not recognize, and she acidly called something back to him. As she turned to answer, her eye caught the Bolg king for a split second, but she did not favor him with a longer glance before returning to her work.
Finally, as the rest of the Panjeri began to descend with the crates and animals, two men came over to the scaffold. One grabbed the supports impatiently and shook it.
The woman atop it swayed slightly at the motion, then caught herself with a lightening-quick act of balance. She seized a small brass pot from which she had been dipping and hurled it at the man’s head, missing it deliberately by a hairsbreadth, but splattering him with glaze. Then she tossed her tools down to the other man and descended the scaffold, her dark eyes flashing at the one who had shaken it.
Achmed stood by, trying to catch her notice, as she exchanged a few pointed words with her fellow craftsman, then stooped to pick up the pot. The men seized the scaffold and broke it down, carrying the pieces quickly to the remaining wagon. The woman, having retrieved her pot, turned to follow them. Achmed interposed himself quickly between her and the wagon.
“Hello,” he said awkwardly, grinding his teeth and wishing Rhapsody were here to make the approach for him; he hated conversation in general, hated initiating it even more, and hated initiating with people with whom he could not communicate past the point of being rational about it. “Do you speak the common tongue of the continent?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “No, I do not, my apologies,” she said curtly, then attempted to step past him.
Achmed jumped to the side to block her again. “Wait, please.” He looked down at her, a sense of guarded excitement coming over him.
The woman was not much taller than Rhapsody, if that. Like Rhapsody, she clad herself in practical clothing, trousers and a stained cambric shirt. She was breathing heavily from the exertion, so her cheeks were ruddy; short, dark locks of hair framed her facial features, which, while hidden beneath a layer of grimy sand and streaked with dried sweat from her work atop the scaffold, were delicate, her dark eyes large and interestingly shaped. Those eyes held a gleam of contempt that he couldn’t help but recognize; he had seen it in his own reflection.
She shared his attitude; she did not brook fools, or anyone who interposed himself in her way.
“Are you finished here?” he asked.
The woman tossed the pot to one of the men who was waiting near the wagon. “Have you been sent to pay us?”
“No,” Achmed said quickly.
“Then move out of my way.” She strode past him to the wagon, and prepared to climb aboard; Achmed caught her arm.
The flurry that resulted caught him by surprise even as cursed himself for not expecting it.
Without hesitation the woman slammed her hand into his shoulder and pushed him back, loosing his grip. As she spun, the remaining artisans, men and women, pulled an assortment of small knives and sharp tools. Achmed dropped her arm quickly and held up his hands.
“Apologies,” he said, cursing himself inwardly. “I am not good at this. I want to hire you.”
The woman leveled her gaze at him for a moment, then shook her head at her companions, who went back to loading the wagon.
“Hire us?” she asked disdainfully. “You cannot afford the price.”
“I — I am King Achmed of Ylorc,” Achmed stammered.
“How fortunate for you. You cannot afford the price. Now kindly move out of the way.” The woman turned her back and walked away.
Achmed felt like he was drowning. All of his normal calm had fled, leaving him feeling desperate, anxious beyond reason.
“What is the price?”
The woman turned and regarded him sharply. She considered his question, inhaling slowly to calm her breath, then spoke.
“Each of us is a sealed master. Two hundred thousand gold suns.”
Achmed swallowed heavily. “Done,” he said.
“In gems. We cannot carry that much in coin.”
“As you wish.”
“Today.”
The Bolg king coughed. “Today?”
The woman nodded, her eyes fixed on his face. “Today. Before the setting of the sun.”
“I cannot possibly do that.”
She nodded. “As I told you — you cannot meet the price.” She returned to the wagon and prepared to climb aboard.
Achmed chased after her. “Wait, please. I can have a bill of tender stamped this evening.”
The woman laughed. She stepped off of the wagon’s rim and came to stand in front of him.
“You do not know of the Panjeri, do you?”
The Bolg king shook his head, swallowing to keep from misspeaking.
“You know nothing of the craft, of the trade, then. Nor anything of our language. The word means ‘the dry leaves.’ We are called that because we blow about in the wind, racing along from place to place, never staying anywhere for longe
r than a fallen leaf would stay in a windy desert. It pains us to remain still for too long. To ask a dozen Panjeri to come to wherever you would need us, would be as to ask a dozen leaves to remain on the ground in a high breeze.”
“I don’t need a dozen Panjeri,” Achmed said quickly, struggling to keep his tone from becoming imperious. “I need but one–the best one, the most talented, highly trained one. The leaf least likely to skitter in the wind.” He raised his eyebrows and cocked his head to view each of the other assembled workers, a wry smile coming over his face. “Which one would that be?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed in response.
“That would be me,” she said haughtily.
“And by what name are you called, as the greatest of the Panjeri?”
“Theophila.”
“I see. Since I have no way to ask the other Panjeri,” the Bolg king counttered, continuing to size up the artisans, who stared blankly at him from the wagon, “and would find it difficult to communicate my needs to them, I’ll just accept that you are the heaviest leaf.”
The woman crossed her arms. “Well, even if they did not agree, how would you understand what they said?”
Achmed nodded, his lips pressed together in a mock show of agreement. “You do have a point there. Very well, Theophila, assuming you are in fact the best stained-glass artisan of the Panjeri, what would the price be to hire just you?”
She considered for a moment. “For how long?”
“However long the project takes. If you would not commit to finish what you begin, I would not have you anyway.”
The woman scowled. “I never leave any aspect of my work unfinished, even as the others pack to leave,” she snarled. “I believe you have witnessed this.”
“Indeed. So again I ask you, what is your price?”
The woman regarded him again, leaning back against the clapboard of the wagon.
“A reason,” she said.
“A reason?”
“Yes. A reason to divert my travels, to separate from my kinsmen, to remain in an unknown place for however long you wish me to remain — can you give me a compelling reason to do so?”
Achmed considered for a moment. “Yes,” he said finally, “I can promise you that the glass you will make for me, the project on which you will work, will be unlike any you have ever done before, or will do again.”
Theophila shrugged. “That is not compelling enough,” she said blandly. “That can be said of most projects we undertake. While the challenge of the work is well and good, it does not feed my family; it does not buy my tools.” She put her foot back on the wagon rim once more and started to hoist herself aboard.
The Bolg king smiled slightly. “Tools? Yes. I did notice your nippers are rusty, and your filial files and groziers are awkwardly balanced. If your price is not in gems, perhaps you can be paid in better tools.”
The woman froze on the rim, then looked back at him, a cool look in her dark eyes. One of the men in the wagon gestured impatiently to her and another of the women began to speak, but she waved them both into silence.
“Perhaps you do know a little of the trade,” she said. “But what do you know of balance, of tools?”
“Everything,” Achmed said brashly, feeling as if he were betting on a hand of cards and hating the feeling. He reached down into his boot and pulled forth a half-weight svarda, balancing one of the three blades on his gloved fingertip, then straightened his arm to demonstrate the perfect equilibrium.
The Panjeri in the wagon stared, their eyes riveted on the circular blade poised in the air above the Bolg king’s index finger. Only Theophila seemed unimpressed.
“We have no need of throwing knives,” she said contemptuously, but Achmed noted a waver in her voice.
She was betting on the cards in her hand as well.
“My craftsmen can make anything that is a tool or a weapon, and make it from a material that will last through your lifetime, and the lifetimes of your grandchildren. It will remain sharp and true, within a hairsbreadth of the width it was when planed in the forge.”
“Oh? Better than diamond-edged steel?”
“Better. Yes.”
She tossed her head, running her hand through her short tresses, spattering the sweat. “I don’t believe you.”
Achmed pulled forth a cwellan disk. “Examine it yourself. But take care–if you are fumble-fingered, you will be maimed. This has no handle; it is a weapon, not a tool.” He chuckled to see the angry reaction in her eyes to the insult, though her face remained stoic.
Delicately she took the disk, and turned it over carefully in her hand, holding it up to the last rays of the low-hanging sun. After a moment she knelt and struck the disk against a rock, then scraped it along the surface with a flicking motion. She stood again and returned the disk to Achmed.
“We are leaving Sorbold soon after we are paid,” she said, walking away as she spoke.
“How soon?” he asked as she vaulted into the wagon and sat down next to one of the other women. The man who shook the scaffold, driving the team, clicked to the horses, and the wagon began to roll.
She shouted back over the noise of the cart as it disappeared over the first rocky rise.
“As soon as the wind changes.”
When the Bolg king was no longer in sight, one of the women spoke in their dying language.
“Theophila, what did that strange man want?”
The woman stared back over the sideboard of the wagon, up into the rocky face of the hill. In the distance she could see a long, thin shadow, backlit by the setting sun, skittering down the cliff face like a spider, stopping from time to time, then hurrying down again as the cart moved farther out of view.
“I’m not certain entirely,” she said. “He says wants to hire me for my expertise in glass.”
The Panjeri looked from one to another.
“And will you go with him?”
“Perhaps. We shall see. If he has returned before we leave on the morn, I may. I doubt he will. But I must consult with the leader.”
“It would be your choice,” said one of the men beside her.
She covered her eyes with her hand, endeavoring to catch sight of the moving shadow, and failing. She put her hand down again and stared out over the ruddy desert below.
“I know.”
Achmed watched until the wagon had descended the mountain to the flatlands, following it down along the ridge. He watched it pull into a campsite amid three other wagons and a handful of tents where the other Panjeri had already laid a celebratory bonfire.
He made careful note of the position of the camp, then hurried down the cliff face and back to the castle of Jierna Tal as night fell thickly, coating the dome of the sky above Sorbold with inky blackness through which no stars could be seen.
23
Nielash Mousa was growing weary of Fists and Scales, sand and Weighings.
Once the burial rites in the deep temple of Terreanfor and the internal peak of the stained-glass crypt were concluded, he had hoped to move on to the more important and difficult business at hand, the sorting out of Sorbold’s future. Insuring Leitha’s place in eternity, complete with pomp and ceremony, and the laying of her scrawny bones to rest in the brilliant light of the stained-glass chapel might have been what the dowager had believed would be the first order of things, but Mousa knew that the dead could wait, while the living might not.
Already there were rumblings in the army.
The empress’s control of the military had been legendary. In a harsh land composed largely of shifting desert sand and impenetrable mountains, the concept of landownership among any but the monarch was more ephemeral than it would have been in other parts of the world, where the terrain was more stable. In Roland, a man could stake out a piece of the Krevensfield Plain or a river valley, build on it, farm it, hand it down to his children, in short, imbue his soul, and the souls of his descendants, into the very soil. Leaders might come and go, taxes might be owed and g
rudgingly paid to the Crown, but the lore of the land belonged to the one whose blood had shaped it, and continued to steward it.
It was the same with the great Orlandan cities. Every palace, every basilica, represented the dreams, aspirations, and sweat of far more people than the duke who lived in it, the benison who performed rites there. It was the vision of the architect, the toil of the carpenter, the labor of the stonemason, magnified a thousand times over, and a hundred thousand times, every shop, guild, and business reflecting the concept of ownership, individual power in the shadow of a loose, overarching leader.
The instability of the terrain of Sorbold, where the places to build cities were few and far between, led to the opposite: the desert disdained the puny attempts of man to conquer it, to mold it; it had much in common with the sea in that regard. The mountains had a similar attitude. As a result, the only real power that the land itself supported was the primacy of whatever ruler held the favor of the Dark Earth, the pure element of Living Stone.
For five generations, that power had been indisputably locked in the iron grasp of the Sorbold royal family. Each generation had produced but one heir; Leitha had been the single offspring of her father’s loins, as he had been to his father before him, and as Vyshla had been to her. This concentration made the family all the more obviously powerful.
And the army respected obvious power.
But now, in a cruel twist, the sole heir had predeceased the monarch, and had died without producing a direct heir himself. This left no one with clear Right of Kings. The field of candidates with far-flung ties to the royal family was a dubious one; already there had been noise that the commander of the Western Face might not be willing to be directed by anyone whose claim to Leitha’s throne was barely more defensible than his own would be.
Those rumblings notwithstanding, they had come, every pretender to the Sun Throne with a drop of blood in his or her veins that could be puffed into a pedigree. It was not the desire for the emperor’s mantle that drove them to sue for the throne–indeed, the responsibility that came with the crown was far more grievous a burden than could be balanced against the pleasures of its power — but in an attempt to retain their own royalty and privilege. Without a family member, no matter how far removed, on the throne, those who had been by birth accustomed to the luxurious trappings and easy life of distant royal relations could be divested of those titles, and the privilege that went with them.